Shooting survivors’ fightback offers hope over gun control
COLUMNIST
ONE of the most amazing and sometimes infuriating things about young people is their ability to call a spade a spade.
Their shoulders have not yet been burdened with the weight of societal expectations on behaviour or views that come with being an adult.
They care little about tip-toeing around powerful people or groups and don’t have to push hurt and deep-seated anger down inside in order to appease others.
They have not yet learned to restrain strong emotions and let them burst forth from their mouths so they can be true to themselves.
Yes it can be a tad hurtful as a parent, I grant you.
We’ve enjoyed a short trip to Tenby this week and when my son Luke asked if I’d packed the night before we were due to leave and I said “not yet”, he replied: “Uh, FAILURE!” Indeed it was, but ouch! Yet we should be thankful for these uncensored voices.
In the wake of the Florida high school shooting it is the teenage survivors who have done what adults have largely failed to do and put the debate on gun control front and centre in America.
While adults resorted to their usual tactics of sending out pointless tweets offering “thoughts and prayers” and stating that “now isn’t the time to talk about gun control”, these brave young people are taking their fight for tighter gun control measures to the doors of legislators.
These fantastic and eloquent voices have drowned out the boring drone of internet posts and commentators who resort to old favourites like: “Look, we don’t ban cars when a driver kills someone so why should we bring in gun control?”
There are also clearly mental health issues at play and, while calls for better support for those in need must be welcomed, one of the clearly outraged Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School pupils put it best when she told a rally: “We know that they are claiming that there are mental health issues and I am not a psychologist, but we need to pay attention to the fact that this isn’t just a mental health issue.
“He wouldn’t have harmed that many students with a knife!
“And how about we stop blaming the victims for something that was the shooter’s fault.
“It’s the fault of the people who let him by the guns in the first place, those at the gun shows, the people who encouraged him to buy accessories for his guns to make them fully automatic, the people who didn’t take them away from him when they knew he had expressed homicidal tendencies.”
She added that if President Trump wanted to come up to her and express his sympathy, tell her it was a tragedy and yet maintain that nothing would be done, she said she’d happily ask him how much money he’s received from the National Rifle Association (NRA).
And to every politician taking donations from the NRA, she added: “Shame on you.”
You see, these students – who have been through the most horrific ordeal – do not care about the NRA’s lobbying power.
They see things more clearly and simply than adults, who are supposedly wiser, ever could.
Guns kill and the rights of those who wish to go to school and get an education without fear of being put on lockdown or hunted to their death by an active shooter should not be trumped by an out-of-date constitutional amendment from 227 years ago and a lobby of selfish men.
When I first heard of this latest shooting I despaired for America believing that, as usual, anyone who even mentioned gun control would be torn to shreds and nothing would change. Now, having seen the fightback staged by these pupils, I am full of hope.
Even in the face of cowardly political attacks from the right and online conspiracy theorists claiming they are actors or puppets of a leftistagenda whose minds and opinions are being controlled, they remain strong and determined.